Ten American Dollars
by Joriel
Summary: Yuki Eiri dwells on Shuichi, and why he treats him as he does. I gave it the R because of the nature of the anime and the emotional and physical abuse in it.


Why am I watching this program? I never watch music shows.  
  
But here I am, watching band after pathetic band scroll by on the television screen. I try to tell myself that I'm only watching to see what pop culture is doing these days, to keep my writing current and appealing to my readers using the icons they know. I almost have  
  
convinced myself of this, until a new band name flashes across the screen, and a shock of pink hair walks across.  
  
His eyes are scanning the audience, his lips forming my name silently as he looks for me. I wonder if anyone else notices the slight fall of his lips when he fails to find me, the tiniest tension in his body language. Ah, Hiro sees. Hiro lifts his eyes to the camera, and they are so cold, a coldness that I know is meant for me alone. I gave Shuichi reason to cry other than his own naive stupidity. I think Hiro would kill me if he could, remove me entirely from the world that Shuichi lives in so that the bright young singer can shine again on his own. So that his eyes will stop scanning the audience for me.  
  
Stop looking for me, Shu-chan. I can't let you find me again, you'll bring the value of your life down to mine. My beloved Shu-chan, beautiful and shining Shuichi, like no one I had ever known existed. Only three short years separate the span of our lives, and yet we are so very different.  
  
You're worth a million yen, just like Tohma said on the game show. Tohma knows the value of people, it's his instinct. And he is never wrong, never wastes his companies resources on anyone of little value. I think he allows Ryuichi to sing with you because he knows your value, Shu-chan, he knows that you will take Ryuichi places even he alone  
  
couldn't reach. Places that were not meant for me, I who bear another man's name so that I will always remember my worth. Ten american dollars, that is all my value Shu-chan. You can do better.  
  
So I pushed you away, locking you out into the cold night, telling you how badly you perform in bed. Even as my body screams to warm itself in your fire again, to feel the sheer passion the slightest of your touches awakens in me. Nothing is like the feel of you pressed up to me, of being inside your body, of having you in mine. Of the wide startled  
  
look in your eyes every time, it never got old for you. Each moment in life is new, no matter how many times you've lived it before.  
  
And each new pain that I heap upon your shoulders seems new, like it's the first time ever you've been hurt. And I hate myself for it, for making your eyes utterly lost and dull. I keep telling myself you'll get used to it, that you'll learn the only thing that can come from me is pain, that you'll go find someone else like you, someone worth a million yen. I would guess Hiro if he were not involved with Ayaka-chan now. She won't talk to me anymore, you've endeared yourself to her like everyone else. You introduced her to real love, not the fictional emotion in my books. You are as much the brother to the man she loves as if you had been born that way. Her eyes were filled with hate when she came to me. She'd been with you, probably hugging you closely and whispering soft things to your heart to try to heal the wounds of her friend. I could smell you on her, faint as the scent was. I know it better than the scent of the soap I use every day. Better than the  
  
familiar aura of cigarette smoke. Maybe she'll introduce you to real love, not the sick and twisted thing you knew in my arms. She knows a lot of people, million-yen people with both beauty of body and grace of heart that can love you. Can love you in ways a worthless ten american dollars man like me never can.  
  
If Yuki were not already dead, I would go to him right now, and kill him. Coldly, with hate in my heart. A bitter laugh rises in my throat, how I loved him once. I thought the world rose and set on Yuki Kitazawa. He sold me to those men, sold my innocence and my body to those american men for ten dollars. One small green piece of paper with the number 10 on it and the face of a dead president to make me just as dead. Dead president, dead Yuki, dead Eiri. Living Shuichi. The living and the dead shouldn't mingle their breaths, beautiful shining Shuichi. Yuki took from me the greatest thing in my life, and he never even got to see you. He placed you so far out of my reach that day that the only thing I can do is sit here and watch you shining on tv, heart aching at the  
  
sight of your eyes emptily scanning the audience for something that's not there.  
  
I dread the day you get on stage, eyes remaining fixed on the assigned spot the producers want them for the best camera angles of your lovely face, of that beautiful body in the long yellow jacket and skintight black shorts. Forget me, Koibito, I know your worth, I know your value.  
  
And mine isn't even close. 


End file.
